Swamp Things

Our heroes are woken by elves at sunrise with news; there is to be a funeral ceremony for the fallen Silanis Nightshadow, and Apocalypsia has miraculously arrived to join the party once more. Thankfully there are no awkward questions as to how she managed to track the party over 200 miles.

The elves invite the party to join them in the solemn occasion. Jerell’s song and Doomsayer Brynn’s speech don’t go down particularly well, but Trellara swallows Apocalypsia’s grade-A bullshit “sympathy” and asks for seconds.

The party set out for Rhest in two row-boats, and soon arrive at the half-submerged ruins of the town which lies at the centre of a lake. By now it is sweltering and muggy. In an uncharacteristically cautious move the party decide to spend some time observing their target, and realise that although hobgoblins seem to have made some of the semi-submerged buildings their base, the large lake is circled by several lizardman camps.

The party decide to employ diplomacy; perhaps they can persuade the lizardfolks to join them in the battle against the hobgoblins. They approach the nearest lizardman tents and, naturally, slaughter the occupants to a lizard. Habbakuk and Thovar very nearly become crocodile dinner, but the party survive only to realise that they have forgotten to sway the lizardfolk to their side.

They try again, determined to employ more diplomatic methods this time. Brynn approaches the second camp, and speaks Common loudly and clearly to the savage beastmen. Inevitably the lizardmen are wiped out once again, although this time the party have the presence of mind to take a prisoner.

This marsh mystic witters on endlessly about the “Winged Master”, and seems quite a cooperative (and stupid) captive. Sadly the party decide to kill him before asking things like “Where does the winged master live? What allies does he have? How many of them are there? Where do they reside? What defences are in place? Where are they most vulnerable?” and so on. Never mind, I’m sure it will all work out fine.

The party toy with hollowing out the giant crocodile to approach the sunken buildings undetected, but in the end decide to go with elven row-boats hidden under lizardman tents. It’s a good thing the storm that has been brewing all day looks about to break.

6 Responses to “Swamp Things”

OK, who else thought it felt mighty fine to be back in the world of 4e? Great game, played with our usual brio and flair. Actually, I thought we managed the combats rather well. Brick’s new “Enemies Stick To Me!” ability is a real crowd pleaser as is Tetsu’s “Goosey-goosey gander, whither will I wander?” feat. Brynn didn’t disappoint with his customary declamatory religious bilge but surprisingly competent and aggressive martial abilities. No-one set the dwarf on fire which, for me a least, was a shade disappointing.

I can’t see any reason why our boat-camo’d-as-a-floating-tent ruse will be anything other than highly successful. I suspect tents regularly float across the lake and do not attract the attention of watchful Hobgoblin guards. At all.

Tetsu – does “Goosey-goosey gander” enable you to ignore all terrain affects? Could you walk on water?

I actually felt that Brother Bryn squandered the opportunity to cause some real offense at the elven funeral. Given more time I’m sure I could have come up with a much better speech along the lines of “He’s going to hell and so are all of you.”

We won the combats by a safe margin but I don’t think we should get too complacent as I suspect administrative errors by the GMs laptop were more to blame than our tactical ability.

Unfortunately I can’t make the next session as I am at the hospital. I wish you luck with the suicide mission though.

Sadly it only lets me ignore difficult ground when I shift outside, and I have a suspicion that water counts as more than difficult ground :p

Great session all, looking forward to this Friday even though we have the hard task of getting the paladin slaughtered while he thanks Pelor. Maybe his noble sacrifice will mirculously cure the Bards volatile stomach bug so he will be fit for a round of beating!

Coleslaw is a treacherous surface no doubt, but I reckon it would be possible to walk across it if the coleslaw were very thick and the walker was travelling quickly…

As for fallibility, unlike the Prophet of Doom I didn’t notice any mistakes. But that’s what these religious types do; they gnaw away at your confidence, pick holes in things, make you feel guilty and then come up with the solution to all the problems they caused in the first place.